Fire, boulders, and ice were raining down from the sky. The air was scorching hot and there was mist and smoke everywhere. The world around her was slowly molding into an apocalyptic picture painted with magic and madness. 

Mila's eyes were teary. She could barely see. The earth was still shaking. Weak and human as she was, she could barely stand. Everything was a complex picture of calamity and she. the weakest link was in the mids of all that. The fighting lycans were being hit again and again by the wrath of their goddess. That was not her fight but boulders didn't distinguish between fantastic or ordinary, they drew blood regardless. 

Descending from heaven was the goddess become flesh, her whole being wonder and light.

Goosebumps built up on Mila's arms. Nobody could stay passive to her might, least of all Mila in her humanity. Samira's body was still in her arms, but their attention was captured by the one being that seemed to enslave even the primal elements around them. 

Then she did what nobody had expected; she struck Kiril down. 

"What the... What's happening?" Mila was hopeful. What is a god if not a divine justice bearer? 

"I have no idea but it can't be good," whispered Samira. Her face displayed blank horror. "We have to get away from here." That wasn't at all what she was expecting.

"Why? She struck him down."

"Yes, but the storm only became stronger. She is mad with all of us."

"I am not leaving without Erik," said Mila searching the crowd for him.

"There is fire and stone raining from the sky. Milena, you will die if you don't leave. You most of all."

"I don't care. I am not leaving without him. Where is he?!"

"There..." said Samira pointing at Erik that was in his beast form, attacked by six other wolves.

Mila's eyes moved back to the ominous goddess. She descended from the air and was walking among the battling wolves.  She was walking towards him between fire and thunder. Mila's heart was beating like crazy. Was she going to kill him? Struck him as she did with Kiril?

"Erik!" Mila screamed into the void of the battle noise. 

Nobody seemed to hear her but the goddess looked in her direction and smiled a vile smile.

She moved her arm abruptly and all the wolves around Erik were blown away, thrown in the pit of the volcano. Then she touched Erik's snout and forced him back into his human form. His eyes reflected blank despair.

"Mila!" he screamed, but the goddess silenced him with a finger pressed on bloody lips.

A boulder hit Mila's arm. The pain was deep and thundering, bringing her back to the human body she almost forgot about. 

"Mila we have to go. I don't want to die. I don't want my baby to die, so stand up and let's go," cried Samira.

The earth shook again as if it were to split open and separate Mila from Samira. Stones continued raining from the sky and hitting Mila again and again but she couldn't move; she couldn't take her eyes off them.

"Mila, I l..." The words died in his throat.

The Goddess caressed his face and whispered faintly " My beloved" before she kissed him on the lips and stabbed him in the heart with the glowing sword, that was the result of so much torment.

Something must have happened because everything sunk into darkness.

*

"We write anno domini thirteen, my beloved," whispered a breathtakingly beautiful girl with silver hair and dark blue eyes, while she was caressing a man's bare chest.

 His golden skin contrasted with her ivory complexion. He was also beautiful, not the godly perfection of hers, but the beauty touched by humanity: imperfect yet fascinating. His eyes were deep green and his hair dark and smooth falling over his shoulders. There was something familiar about him but at the same time foreign. 

"Do you really think I can dethrone Augustus?"

"With my help, of course, you can. You are magnificent, Lucius. First Augustus, then the world, and then the gods."

"You are, my beloved," he said kissing the girl and making her giggle in delight.

The air was hot and smelled of spices. They were laying in a room separated from outside only by pillars framing a magnificent city view. Ancient Rome. It looked like Ancient Rome with its seven hills.

*

"Helios, what are you doing here? And Gea?" said the girl looking at a blond man and a woman with long brown locks that were walking towards her.

"Do not dare to touch her," said her lover.

"Stay out of it, Lucius. Selene, you are getting too ambitious. Do you think we do not know what you were planning? To have your lapdog slay us."

"Lucius, get our son and run," said the girl.

The man took a babe from a cradle. In the other hand, he was holding the familiar two-pointed sword.

"I am going to slay you all," screamed Lucius.

The blond man and Lucius started fighting. Even holding the child, Lucius was a formidable swordsman and seemed to be winning.

Suddenly everything sunk into darkness, the only thing visible was the glowing skin of the silver-haired girl. But the woman stepped in front of her and covered her light.

The girl screamed for Lucius and Lucius screamed back in pain.

When the light came back, Lucius was bleeding on the floor, his chest was cut open and the child was not a child anymore but a wolf pup.

*

"Welcome back my beloved," said the girl kissing a man with dark hair and hazel eyes. It was not the same man, the only similarity was his gaze.

*

"Burn them, burn them all!!" screamed the man while Rome was burning at his feet and madness was shining in his eyes.

*

Mila felt something cold and wet on her face.

Her body was waking up slowly and was aching all over. Her head was a giant node of pain.

She tried to open her eyes but they fell back shut; her lids were so heavy and there was so much pain everywhere and it was hot. It was so hot and the blankets were a tangle she didn't have the force to lift. There was sand under her fingertips and she had no idea where she was.

"Argh... hot," she muttered. 

Someone touched her face. The hand was pleasantly cool on her blazing skin. 

"You are feverish, damn it," cursed a familiar voice that she couldn't quite place in her memory.

A deep slumber swallowed her again. The next time she woke up it was in a bed. This time the surroundings were pleasant, smooth, and cozy. 

She opened her eyes slowly and colors around her took the shape of a room. Her arm had been bandaged; so were several other parts of her body and she was wearing a silk pajama but the surroundings were completely foreign. It looked like a lovely house with Persian rugs and wooden wall ornaments. 

The last thing she remembered was Erik. Erik was stabbed in the heart by the Moon Goddess. Erik was dead.

If he is dead, the mark will turn dark. You will know...

She wanted to lift her night skirt but it was long and heavy. The covers were heavy too and her arms were weak. In despair, she tore the garment open to look at Erik's marking.

It was black. It was as Angel said it would be; the marking was black, meaning he was indeed dead.  Angel was probably dead too, and so was everybody else.

"No!" she screamed and started sobbing.

Dead, everybody was dead.  The air was burning in her lungs. She couldn't breathe and was shaking. It felt like dying but death is never pleasant as much as you desire it sometimes. 

"Mila, calm down." The door slammed open. Kiril kneeled on the bed and enveloped her face with his hands. 

"I don't want to calm down. Everyone is dead. Erik is dead. I have nothing to live for anymore. Again nothing to live for..." she screamed, shaking violently so lost in her trauma that she didn't even notice the oddity of the situation. 

"I said calm down!" repeated Kiril. His irises were shining and there was something like pure power taking control of her body. 

Despite how she was feeling, her heartbeat calmed down forcefully. He was using magic to pull her out of her panic attack.

She was craving the pain and he didn't let her have it and that made her thundering mad. 

"Let me die!" she screamed again.

"No!"

"I am not yours to command! Let me die. I have NOTHING!" cried Mila.

"You have a child!" scream Kiril in return and pressed her against the mattress so she would not be able to move.

It was unexpected, invasive, and frightening but surprisingly the right thing to do because she could hardly contain her body from shaking. They must have stayed there for minutes, his hands pressed on her shoulders, his eyes fixed on hers.

It must have been his magic because it was certainly not their proximity that made her regain her composure.

"That is not true. Everyone is dead and I cannot have kids," whispered Mila in the end in a dead voice.

"It is. I can hear its thoughts, or rather feel its feelings. It is there and it is making me crazy. I want to rip it out of you, just not to hear it anymore," said Kiril, and his astonishing blue eyes lit up again.

All the events just came crashing down on Mila. That couldn't be true. She had sex exactly once. It was indeed profusely unprotected but she couldn't have kids.

"I... I don't know what to say."

It was futile trying to wrap her head around what was happening; she couldn't possibly understand it.

"You saved me? Why?" whispered Mila. 

Kiril looked away. 

"You... you are my mate. Or at least it feels as if you are. I couldn't let you die," said Kiril glacially.

"Where are we? Who's house is it?"

For the first time since she woke up, Mila actually looked at Kiril. There were several wounds on him that hadn't healed completely, his hair was tousled, the little braids loose and the silver beads were all missing. He looked exhausted and in pain.

"What happened to the others? Your pack? Erik's? Samira?"

"Many of them are dead. Nachin and many others from my pack. I don't know what happened to everyone but it was very difficult for me to get out of there, so many likely didn't make it."

The sadness and the pain were obvious despite his effort to hide them. The ice-cold Kiril was hurting.

"Why did you do that? You sentenced all to death with your actions. And she, she doesn't love you at all. And she killed Erik. She stabbed him in the heart smiling. What sort of monster is your god?"

"She would have done it anyway. She would have compelled somebody else to do it if I had not done it. I hoped to have it under control, but I was a split second too late. I should never have let her grab the sword. It was over the moment she touched it. A split second and I could have killed her. Damn it," hissed Kiril.

"Killed her? You wanted to kill her all along?"

"Yes. What did you think? She sacrificed the woman who raised me and turned my father mad to resurrect her gods damned lover. She never cared about any of us."

It was a lot of information to process.

"I, I saw things while I was asleep. I saw her, I think, in the past..."

"You must have seen my memories. The ones I saw in her mind."

"There was a man that she loved and a child turned into a wolf. And then another man that was different but still the same and he burned a city..."

"Yes, Milena, their child was the first Lycan, cursed by the gods to turn whenever his mother gets too close to him, meaning on full moon nights. And the man was Lucius, her human warrior lover with titan blood, whom she wanted to use to slay the other gods. After they killed him she tried to resurrect him several times. He does not have a body anymore only a soul that can be bound with the body of one of his descendants.
The first time she tried it, it was with her own grandson, Nero, emperor of Rome. But he couldn't hold Lucius' power for long and went mad, burning the eternal city in his delirium.

After that the other gods decided to put one more lock on him, splitting his soul, which was trapped in Anima Mundis, his sword, into the six relics that were divided between the continental alphas.

Wolves are territorial and it was unlikely for them to unite willingly.

The last one that gathered them was my father. He adored her and was completely bewitched. Over the centuries she searched for better vessels to hold Lucius' soul. My father was a soul reader, in a way like me. She thought that would help hold Lucius' soul better. It didn't. My father went mad after five years. He was a good person, but history remembers him now as... whatever abomination they describe in history lessons."

Mila didn't say anything. She just stared at him for some minutes, at his very pale, beautiful face.

"And your mother...?"

"She killed her as a sacrifice to the shadows of the underworld to let Lucius' soul free once more. It was a willing sacrifice out of love for her goddess."

All the things he was saying seemed not even like a fable but like reality dirtied with magic, the one thing that made people most uneasy. 

"Fuck. How did you see in her mind? Can you do that all the time?"

"No. With humans or lycans it's easier, with gods it's different. But she slept with me on the night of the Blood Moon, a hundred years ago. I was barely nineteen, nineteen human years. She looked into my mind, as she always does, but she didn't suspect I could and would look back. Before that, I adored her, like my father did, afterwards, the only thing on my mind was how to kill a god."

"I think, I need a drink..."

"Whiskey? Vodka?" asked Kiril smirking.

"The strongest shit you have."

Kiril filled two crystal glasses with an ember-colored liquid and handed one to Mila.

"Cheers..." he said clicking their glasses and drinking his in one sip.

------

Great thanks to everyone that made it this far. <3

What do you think of the characters, who do you like, dislike, who is your favorite? I am dying to know. :)